AIR MAIL – The Board Game

Story and photos by Gord Mallet
posted February 2023
In December 2022, Christmas gifts were exchanged between my son Jonathan in Stony Plain, Alberta and myself in Kelowna, British Columbia.  Upon delivery, we were both surprised!
The AIR MAIL (Canada and USA) board game, created by Barcelona Spain’s well-known game designer Toni Lopez.
The Air Mails of Canada and Newfoundland, edited by Chris Hargreaves of the Canadian Aerophilatelic Society.
Neither one of us had communicated that our gift would be related to my retirement hobby – researching and collecting airmail covers these last thirty years.  We’ve not yet been able to meet for a good conversation about the catalogue as well as its coloured illustrations and wide-ranging content, outlined in the Canadian Aerophilatelic Society’s Journal 133.

What will be examined here however are a number of facts about the AIR MAIL board game he sent, recommended for adults and youngsters aged 10 and above.  It has an approximate playing time of forty minutes.  The aim of the game is to achieve the highest possible income for your airline company, more than the other players are able to generate. There are three ways to acquire income: transporting Packages between different divisions of the country, complying with Postal Service Decrees and making Express Deliveries.

The Canadian board game is for two or three players, while the USA game is for up to five.  Both the planes and box-shaped parcels to be delivered are of the same company colour.    
   
The game consists of players taking turns clockwise, choosing between two possible options: playing a permit card from their hand or asking for a grant.  The large-sized game board is pictured unfolded in the photograph overpage.  For the USA game, the reverse side of the board is used.  Game instructions and strategies are available by clicking here.
In 1925, the American Congress approved the “Kelly Air Mail Act”, in which the Postmaster General received authorization to contract commercial aviation companies to carry mail.
In Canada, somewhat similar mail delivery was initially established in 1924 when the Canadian Post Office Department authorized a number of like companies to print semi-official stamps and charge a fee for the carriage of mail, most usually to northern mining firms.

The game allows players to step into the shoes of aviation tycoons and to then manage one of these companies competing for various contracts to establish and operate air mail routes.  Obviously, the greater the distance between a transported package’s origin and its destination, the greater the profit.  Airline profits back then were very small compared to today’s bottom lines.  The first USA air mail contractors in 1925, for example, were paid only $3.00 per pound of mail carried the first 1,000 miles!  
Game designer Toni Lopez  labelled a couple of centres that aren’t linked by regular aerial service.  Ware, an aboriginal community in northern British Columbia, is one of these. It has no such contract with Juneau, Alaska.  Formerly, there was a Prince George to Ware route, thru Ft. McLeod, Finlay Forks and Ft. Grahame.  The Air Mails of Canada and Newfoundland 635-page catalogue lists this earlier route (item #3897) inaugurated by Grant McConachie’s United Air Transport on March 12 - 14 1938.  Chief pilot E. R. R. “Ted” Field made the flights.
This reworked map and the flight cover cachets are from the recently-published catalogue’s Section 5 – Government Air Mail Covers.

About the Book:
THE AIR MAILS OF CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND, 2nd edition. (AMCN2)
by Chris Hargreaves

AMCN2 is intended to be a history of Canadian airmail, as well as a priced listing of flown covers. (The term covers is used to include envelopes, postcards, aerograms, and other items carried by mail).
 
The first section of the book describes a variety of items carried on Pioneer flights up until the 1920’s. Since many of the early pilots carried letters and postcards to achieve extra publicity and/or revenue, this section reflects the early history of civil aviation in Canada.
 
In May 1924 Laurentide Air Service began the first scheduled air service in Canada, flying from Angliers, Québec, to the Rouyn Goldfields. At first it carried messages on a courtesy basis, but in September 1924 it was given permission to charge 25 cents per letter carried. This mail was carried on a semi-official basis, as the Post Office accepted no responsibility for its delivery to the person it was addressed to. The company produced its own stamps to be placed on these covers, and soon discovered there was great demand from philatelists for these stamps, and also for covers carried on its flights. Later airline companies took advantage of this interest, and the production of semi-official stamps, and of souvenir covers carried when a new service was inaugurated, became a significant part of many companies’ revenue.
 
When the Canadian Post Office Department began paying for airmail services, it also took advantage of the public interest in both aviation and philately. In 1928 it offered a souvenir cachet on mail carried by special flights to and from Toronto to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Canadian National Exhibition. To receive the cachet letters had to be franked five cents rather than the usual two cents, but over 60,000 letters were carried on the flights. From then on the Post Office offered souvenir cachets on mail carried by the inaugural flight of most new services, and frequently offered a different cachet for each leg of a new service.
 
The Post Office stopped offering cachets on a regular basis following World War II, but airlines began producing covers to commemorate new services, and when new aircraft were introduced. If a company didn’t produce a cover, interested philatelists often would, and souvenir covers were also produced for events like airport openings. This continued until the 1980s, after which the number of covers produced began to decline.
 
In addition to listing all the covers described above, there are sections of the book listing covers flown by airships, balloons, gliders and helicopters. It also describes covers recovered from crashes, has a guide to signatures found on covers, provides a detailed listing of rates charged for air mail over the years, and much more.
 
AMCN2 is volume 4 of the Seventh edition of The American Air Mail Catalogue, published by the American Air Mail Society. The price of the catalogue has been subsidized by both the AAMS and the Canadian Aerophilatelic Society to stimulate interest in Canadian airmail. It is available for $65 Canadian plus $10 postage to anywhere: email hargreavescp@sympatico.ca to order a catalogue or for more information.
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